On this day in space! Aug. 29, 1965: NASA's Gemini 5 breaks spaceflight duration record after 2 astronauts spent '8 days in a garbage can'

On Aug.

29, 1965, two NASA astronauts returned from their record-breaking Gemini 5 mission .

Astronauts Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad spent eight days in Earth orbit, and for the first time, the United States set a world record for the duration of a crewed spaceflight.

The Gemini 5 mission launched on Aug.

21, 1965 atop a Titan II rocket from what was then the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (now the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station ) in Florida.

While in orbit, the astronauts were supposed to test rendezvous capabilities and maneuvers using a pod that deployed from their spacecraft.

But due to an electrical problem, they had to cancel those plans along with several science experiments.

Pete Conrad later called the mission "eight days in a garbage can," referring to the cramped quarters of the Gemini spacecraft .

Why it mattered NASA Astronauts Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad exit their spacecraft after splashdown of the Gemini 5 spacecraft on Aug.

29, 19.

They are photographed boarding a life raft with the help of Navy divers. (Image credit: NASA) Human spaceflight was still pretty new in 1965 when NASA's Gemini program was in full swing.

The first crewed launch was just four years earlier, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth for just 108 minutes on Vostok 1.

By 1965, NASA's longest mission had run just 4 days, but the space agency needed missions at least twice as long if it was to send astronauts to the moon and back under Project Apollo .

Astronauts Gordon Cooper (left) and Charles Conrad are seen in the Gemini 5 spacecraft just before launching on their 8 Days or Bust mission in 1965.